“Everything’s working; the passing is working, the running is working the kickers are working and the peanut sellers are working.”  Jay is barely sitting like a pasha in his tent with his harem of women…me and our dog, Maggie.  Except for a hookah, he’s got it all, including a case of happy nerves.

    Got him a sub sandwich for his lunch and he’s been munching on it between plays.  What helped Jay swallow his diet coke throughout the game is the fact that the Oakland Raiders are a lousy team.  

That’s what he says, not me. ‘The Raiders can’t pass; they can’t run and they can’t get a semi-complicated play together.”

      I just listen and learn. 

      Innocently, I ask why.  Jay looks at me with wonderment.  “Don’t you know that they never hold onto a coach for more than a year or two?  They need momentum and a strong coaching staff to be the team the Giants are, and they don’t have the sense to pay attention to the teams that do it right.

      At this point, I must inject that I met Jay during the era that the Giants were 1-1-14, score wise for many seasons.  They were then coached by Allie Sherman, a resolute man who persevered through the worst onslaughts in Giants history.  And Jay tried to help him through those games, via telekinesis.  He was sure that he, and other devoted Giants fans, could turn the lost games around.  And he tried—oh how he tried--over and over and over again, until each terrible season was complete. 

      At that point, when he knew that there was no reason to suspend reality for all the months in between, he’d settled into a belief that the next season would be better.  They’d trade for better runners, they’d perfect their passing game and they’d make it back to the top.

     And they eventually did.  Within the last 40 years they have won three Superbowl games and competed in one other.  Yet, I cannot blame Jay’s Giants for his cardiac problems, although I know his pulse rate and blood pressure must be sky high with each play and I make a dinner each game day with lots of Omega-three fatty acids to clean his arteries.  

     Next week, he told me, the strong teams begin to play his Giants.  He’s wary of Washington, Atlanta, Philly and a couple of others.  I hope he doesn’t start to agonize about potential losses, in advance.  At least I know he’d never get in touch with Coach Coughlin to give him some of his life long advice, by virtue of his life long experience as a fan.  He’s not a real fanatic…Not really…

    The man just loves his team, and I love the man.